462 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [ CHAP. IT.
prevented its proper personality. Neither, 7. Did hence any mix- ture or confusion of natures ensue, or of the essential properties of them; for he took the seed of Abraham to be his human nature, which if mixed with the divine it could not be. And this he hath done, 8. Inseparably and for ever. Which things are handled at large elsewhere.
II. The redemption of mankind by the taking of our nature, was a work of mere sovereign grace.
He took the seed of Abraham; he took not the nature of angels. And for what cause or reason? Can any be assigned but the sove- reign grace, pleasure, and love of God? nor doth the Scripture any- where assign any other. And this will the better appear if we con- sider,—
1. That for a sinning nature to be saved, it was indispensably necessary that it should be assumed. The nature of angels being not taken, those that sinned in that nature must perish for ever; and they that fancy a possibility of saving sinners any other way but by satisfaction made in the nature that had sinned, seem not to have considered aright the nature of sin and the justice of God. Had any other way been possible, why doth the perishing of angels so inevitably follow the non-assumption of their nature? This way alone, then, could it be wrought.
2. That we were carrying away all human nature into endless destruction; for so it is intimated: whence Christ’s assumption of it is expressed by his putting forth his hand and taking hold of it, to stop it in its course of apostasy and ruin. Of angels, only some individual persons fell from God; but our whole nature, in every one to whom it was communicated from and by Adam, was running headlong to destruction. In itself there could be no relief, nor any thing to commend it unto God.
Here sovereign grace interposeth,—the love of God to mankind, Tit. iii. 4. As to the angels, he “spared them not,” 2 Pet. ii. 4. He spared not them, and “spared not his Son” for us, Rom. vii. 32. And if we consider rightly what the Scripture informs us of the number and dignity of the angels that sinned, of their nature and ability to accomplish the will of God, and compare therewith our own vileness and low condition, we may have matter of eternal admiration sug- gested unto us. And there was infinite wisdom as well as sovereign grace in this dispensation, sundry branches whereof the apostle after- wards holds out unto us.
VERSES 17, 18.
Having declared the general reasons why the Son or Messiah was for a little while to be made lower than the angels, in his incarna- tion and sufferings, and showed the ends thereof, the apostle pro-
VER, 17, 18.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 463
ceeds to declare other especial ends of this divine dispensation, and therein makes way unto what he had to instruct the Hebrews in about the priestly office of Christ; which was the principal ground and foundation of what he intended naore fully afterwards to dis- course with them about and to inform them in.
Ver. 17, 18.—"Obey Hperre xarc rdvrem rots ddeAQOIS Smoreodjves, vee Aenuay yevyrar nal miords cpyispsds re mpg tiv @edy, cfg rd iAcdonecbus THs Kmoprins rov Awov. “Ev w yap wrerovbev wirig reipmodsic, Ovvaras rors reipalomevors Pondjocs.
“Odev dQzire. V., “unde debuit,” “ whence he ought.” So Beza. Syr., pint PU N27 “for which cause,” (or “ wherefore”) “it was just,” “ meet,” or “ equal.” Others, “ wherefore it was due;” “it was convenient;” “ wherefore it behoved him ;” so ours. “O@e/Aw joined with an infinitive mood, as here it is, signifies commonly “ oportet me,” or “ necesse est,” or “ debeo,”—* I ought,” “ it behoveth me,” “it is necessary for me;” and denotes more than a mere congruency, con- yenieney, or expediency, even such a kind of necessity a3 ariseth from that which in itself is just and equal; which the Syriac expresseth. It is of the same import- ance with empent, verse 10,
Kurd revre, “per omnia.” Syr., 572 528, “in omni re,” “in every thing.” Arab., “In cunctis eorum conditionibus,” “i in all conditions ;” that is, every con- ditties and state of life. Ours, “in all things,” leaving the words where they are placed im the original, “ wherefore in all things it behoved him ;” whereas a little transposition of them would more clear up the sense, “ wherefore it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren in all things.” The Ethiopic quite omits the words here, and placeth them after 2acymav, “ merciful in all things.”
Tois dderQois omombgvar. V., “fratribus simulari;” Eras., “similis reddi;” Beza, “ similis fieri;” as ours, “to be made like.” The article prefixed to ad<a- Qois vestrains the name “ brethren” unto those whom he had before discoursed of under the names of * children,” “ disciples,” “ sanctified ones.”
“Ive trshwav yeuntos nal riords cépxsepsvc, “ut misericors fieret” (or “ esset”’) “ontifex;” so V., Eras., Bez. The Syriac somewhat otherwise, szahyea NNT sais at, “that be might be merciful, and a great priest,” or “ ‘chief priest,” SIND “*faithfal i in the things of God;” so making his mercifulness an attribute of his person absolutely, and faithfulness only to respect him as a high priest. So also the Arabic and Ethiopic. And the word whereby ¢aeqwwy is rendered signifies “ tenderly merciful,” with that kind of merey which is called “ bowels of compassion,” from 577. And itmay be hereobserved, that that interpreter through- out the epistle renders dpxsepevs by xnmi2 a4 “rab comara,” though that word be always used in an ill sense in the Old Testament. Three times it occurs therein ; —2 Kings xxiii. 5, where we render it “idolatrous priests ;” Zeph. i. 4, [where] the name “chemarims” is retained; Hos. x. 5, [where] we express it by “priests,” but place “ chemarim” in the margin. For it principally denoted the priests of Baal and Moloch, and their “ blackness” (as the word is rendered, Job iii. 5), not from the garments they wore, but from the colour they contracted in their diabolical sacrifices in the fire. Hence, wherever the word 17> is applied unto a priest of a false god, or one engaged in false worship, the Targumists constantly render it by srtox. See Judg. xvii. 5, xviii. 4, 30. But this translator respected not so much the use, as the original and extraction of the word ; for from “22 in Niphal, 723, is “ to wax hot,” and “to be moved with internal heat;” whence it is taken to signify compassion and pity,—the same with 577. Hence, Deut, xiii. 18,